Evaluation of the applicability of very high resolution imagery for updating the Flemish Forest Map 2000

Project objectives

The principal objective of this project is the development of a semi-automatic procedure to update the Flemish Forest Map 2000, based on IKONOS imagery.

The increased level of spatial detail found in VHR data has a pronounced impact on the way thematic information is extracted. As the average size of real world objects like trees exceeds the size of a VHR pixel, classification strategies necessarily need to rely on spectral, textural, as well as context-related approaches. The high spatial resolution is of considerable importance in fragmented forest landscapes where average forest patches are small and spatially scattered. In Flanders for example, 38% of the forest patches are less than 1 ha, while 85% are less than 5 ha.